Hot air rework & soldering iron station

[Terry Fox]

I’ve been looking for an inexpensive hot air rework station for a while now, the $20 embossing tool seems OK, but control of the hot air is minimal at best, as the blister on my workbench can attest to.  A couple of weeks ago, my Weller EC1001 finally gave up the ghost.  It would cost $140 for a new iron assembly, which is about the only way to replace the bad cord.  I tried to fix the cord, but it all stopped after that.  My Weller WTCPN just doesn’t cut it.

Meanwhile, my searches came to the X-Tronic 4040 hot air rework and solder station.  The price was $109 off ebay and amazon.  hmmm, $130 to replace the $25+ year-old EC1001 wand, or about the same cost (after shipping) for a combo solder station AND hot air.... I selected the X-Tronic.  I got it today, and it looks pretty good. It comes with ten soldering tips, four hot-air tips, and spare heating elements for both.  Three of the ten tips are very fine, along the size of a Weller PTS-7, certainly good enough for regular SMT work.  The tips are supposedly compatible with Hako.

I’ve turned it on, but have not done any serious soldering yet.  I thought that anyone looking for a good deal on an inexpensive hot air & solder station might be interested in this.  It is on sale at the ebay site for $99 for another day.  Just search for X-Tronic 4040, or here is the link: http://www.ebay.com/itm/X-TRONIC-4040-HOT-AIR-REWORK-SOLDERING-IRON-STATION-/180672745995?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2a10ef520b

Has anybody used this before??
Terry, WB4JFI


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